What a Miserable Night!
 

So last night I was taken to the famous seafood buffet Xi Duo Wu at the Super Brand Mall. 250 rmb and all you can eat (seemingly) fresh seafood, with wonderful Bund views. I was really impressed with the place, and was going to recommend it on here...but

Flash forward 5 hours and I'm extremely sick. So sick, that I've lost around 10 kg, and also lost all of last night's sleep. This is my worst experience by far with Chinese food reacting with my stomach, and is extremely frustrating. I think the only time I've had a bad experience like this was when I was in Qinhuangdao.

Anyways, just ranting on. I'm still running to the bathroom every 20 minutes or so. I think this can go into my street food discussion about quality of food, proving that nothing is good quality here.

Sorry to hear about your situation. Hope you will feel better soon.

You may want to see if your hotel is able to refer you to a doctor. Assuming that you have travel insurance, you can also call your travel insurer to refer you to one of their "approved" doctors. There are lots of expat in Shanghai and there should be many English speaking ones.

Trust your vaccinations are up-to-date. It's a good reminder that we should always visit the travel clinic before any overseas trip.

IMO, China + seafood buffets = not a good idea and especially any cold dishes. Sorry you are experiencing why food poisoning from seafood can be one of the worst. Likely you've lost a lot of water and electrolytes--if you (or have a friend or hotel staff) can get to a pharmacy, try getting some of those Oral Rehydration Salts (口服补液盐) to mix with clean water and sip away. Sports drink like gatorade or similar a less ideal 2nd choice. Get too weak and you may need to head for a clinic to get an IV rehydration. Hope you get to feeling better soon.

Probably from the shellfish - Vibrio parahaemolyticus.
With a weight loss of 10 KG, best to head to an ER for saline chloride IV bolus.

Hope you feel better. Being sick is no fun. I've been really lucky in China...

You've lost 10Kg in one night? No exaggeration? :eek:

Hmm. Do you need a reservation for this place? ;):D

Yep, you absolutely need a reservation for this place. I guess the food is average quality, but the view is top notch. Direct view across the Huangpu towards the Bund. There must've been 500 people eating there, including several laowai.

I managed to pass out for much of the day, and woke up feeling a little bit better. I'm optimistic that I'll wake up tomorrow fully healed, so I can go to the restaurant and complain for my money back. I took a nice picture of my vomit containing a lot of salmon roe which should do the trick....

Headed to Shanghai next week so will make sure I avoid that restaurant. Feel better soon.

I feel your pain and hope you get better soon.

To echo jiejie's comment, China + buffet should not be in the same sentence. The one time I was so sick I wanted to die was the night after I went to a "five" star hotel buffet and ate the shellfish.

Pepto Bismol will help soak up the toxins. Good luck.

Snake wine "shéjiǔ" with its medicinal qualities and high alcohol content
is good to drink when having seafood in China. It compliments the taste
of shellfish and will mitigate affects of bacteria or toxins in the food.

Plus you get a good buzz:D

1) Portman, Shanghai
2) Shangri-La, Makati
3) Japanese place in BJ on NE corner of Guomao Bridge
4) Sheraton, HK
5) Westin, Shanghai
6) Legal Seafoods, Boston
7) Salty's, Portland

All seven of the aforementioned places have caused me pain similar to that described in the OP. Because #6 has an exceptional record on the QC front, I'm inclined to conclude that I'm simply allergic to raw shellfish.

While I still do brunches, I steer clear of oysters these days. BTW, #1 was especially nice to me. They paid for my medical bills and invited me back to brunch for free!

hope you feel better soon!

IME, food poisoning typically runs its course within 24 hours, so I'm guessing he is back in the game by now.

Sorry, but if you'd have lost 10kg in 5 hours you'd not be writing coherent sentences on FT. Nothing of good quality in Shanghai or the mall?

Not entirely bad advice, even though personally I'm a teetotaller. Spirits can prevent some types of food poisoning -- such as due to salmonella, shigella and even hepatitis A (note the latter will manifest itself weeks after exposure, so that 'dodgy oyster from last night' wasn't responsible). However, as a pedant, I should note that alcohol is extremely unlikely to prevent toxin-mediated effects, such as from Staph toxin-mediated food poisoning.

To the OP: hope you're feeling better. Sometimes the culprit of the food poisoning is not as clear as one thinks -- it might have been what you ate for lunch, for example (except for toxin-mediated poisoning, symptoms can take 6-24 hours to develop). You should report the case and try to determine if others were similary affected. I hope the point about losing 10kg in weight was an exaggeration. Only cholera can really cause that magnitude of weight loss, and would result in extremely grave symptoms, requiring intensive and careful rehydration.

tb

Might have to stick with "Hooters" at SBM.

Haha, I could never expect anything like what I experienced after eating Legal. I think the only time I've ever had a bad experience with seafood in the USA was at McCormick and Schmicks when my belly couldn't handle the mahi mahi I ordered.

Feeling a little bit better now, but I've just slept for the last two days basically and haven't had anything to eat. Going to try and hunt out something safe to eat around here.

Good old Legal, I thankfully never got sick there but love their clam chowder.

Both M & S and Legal are relatively safe in my book because they are high volume chains... they can afford to test their products for bacteria of all sorts. The same does not hold true for any given hotel brunch. The fact that Legal is on my hit list suggests that I am abnormally sensitive to shellfish.

Nice place to eat at Logan airport. Legal C, before security, will stamp your BP
for F security line.

Love Legal - FYI - I can now buy the clam chowder at my local Costco - Yum!

I kinda doubt the Chinese follow these type of guidelines.


Legal Sea Foods, a Boston-based company that has earned an industrywide reputation for its focus on the freshness and safety The process starts,
with Arthur Kloak, who clambers into the clammy holds of fishing boats after they tie up at Fish Pier, off Northern Avenue in South Boston.
It continues with Stephen E. Martinello armed with a degree in food science, he wears a white lab coat as he prowls among benches loaded with test tubes, beakers and photospectrometers -- an impressive battery of scientific gear devoted to combating toxins, bacteria and spoilage.
It moves next into a refrigerated cutting room, where men deftly fillet fish and slice them into portions, which are loaded onto refrigerated trucks for delivery to restaurants, where they remain in coolers until they go into a pan.

Raw oysters "got me" twice in Qingdao of all places. Premium seaside restaurant and hosted by a local real estate tycoon on both occasions. From my limited experience, the safest locations for seafood seem to be heavily Japanese and Korean influenced cities like Dalian and Weihai where quality norms are unusually high.

In Shanghai and environs would only eat raw fish and seafood if the chef is Japanese or Korean. On occasion have also brought my own fish, Korean style, to a Japanese friends restaurant in the Shanghai area and have the chef prepare it in different ways.

While I'm no expert in this area, my understanding is that it is not economically sensible for single location venues to perform the types of tests that are necessary to protect those of us with week stomachs. I don't dare to play ball any more, but if I did, Legal would be on the top of my list, followed by M&S.

Actually, I had a pretty bad experience with a Korean restaurant in Qingdao about a month ago. Was out in the Korean area - the place where everything and everyone is Korean. Anyways, it wasn't seafood, but beef, and while I wasn't that sick, I didn't handle it too well either. What bothered me was that I paid like 120 rmb for it and it was supposed to be their premium stuff.....

My worst food poisoning came from a steak dinner at Kuala Lumpur's 'most luxurious KLCC' hotel (not mentioning the name ;)). Hospitalized in Singapore.
Followed by an almost as severe incident in San Francisco and Macau.
Haven't had any (serious) problems in China so far, though.

Lessons learnt: price, location, reputation - all doesn't matter...

Can I add to that list?

8) Ritz Carlton, HK (now demolished and re-located)
9) Island Shangri-La, HK

Chinese Traditional Medicine
 

Food poisoning remedy in China

Quite possibly a Qigong master at a univeristy level in Chinese
Medicine can extract the toxins through the top of your head
without much if any body contact. Sounds absurd to most
westerners, but in fact it is very applicable. Best to find such
in Beijing.

While not relevant to food poisoning, one of the reasons I visit spas so often is because China is simply awash with toxins (food, air, fake booze, cigarette smoke, etc).

Here is a sample regimen:

1) 20 minutes of light cardio
2) 30 minute body scrub with sea salt
3) 15 minutes in sauna with cold beverage... e.g. water or sports drink
4) 2 minute plunge in ice pool
5) cupping massage... need to avoid water for 12 hours after, so plan accordingly
5) relax in

Cupping, very effective.

Also blood letting, painful...great results.
If you can get into that type of treatment.

Any you care to recommend, and what are approximate costs?

tb

Cupping didnt do anything for me... :(
It also made my back look extremely awful...with disease-looking like spots!! :(

Another interesting way to relieve toxins is to find a Chinese Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM) doctor.

He can do acupuncture and also prescribe various "herbs" that u can take to relieve any illnesses that you might have.
Unfortunately, probably need some cooking device to boil the herbs.

The herbs can be found in one of those TCM shops which also sell stuff like dried seahorses, high priced ginseng and tiger's willy. lol

Like this:

http://www.sasmassage.com/wp-content...6/Cupping2.jpg



Its all BS. Doesn't do anything.
Might as well be selling snake oil. :p

Morely's (sp) is my favorite to the extent that I keep their number in my phone on speed dial: 8777 8888.

I've written about it several times on FT in the past.

As far as costs are concerned, ball park:

-door fee = y158
-body scub = y58 + another y30 for the sea salt scrub (they also several other exotic scrubbing products including a beer/milk mixture)
-cupping = y88 (depends on the number of cups)

There are MUCH cheaper places to get massages in Beijing, but I like to treat myself to Morely's on occasion; the oxygen room is particularly pleasant.

I guess will have to agree to disagree about the effectiveness of cupping.

This treatment , guā shā, coin scraping of the back
works well for fever.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gua_Sha.jpg

I'm thinking we might well require a new massage thread in this forums, simply because massages are one of the coolest things about China, and are often overlooked by tourists.

Good for your skin. Quite painful.

Ah yes, the BOS one. I was actually thinking Kendall Sq...

Given two of my close co-workers were doctors who practiced TCM, I've always considered giving it a whirl. Then again, still healthy...